#44: Thoughts From Around The ‘Sphere

JJP links to this article on Alternet showcasing thoughts on the impending Barack Obama presidency by black leaders such as Maya Angelou, Spike Lee, Toni Morrison, and others. Maya Angelou, initially a Hillary Clinton supporter, says,

I never thought I’d see a black president in the White House in my lifetime. I didn’t even dare dream it. I feel like a child approaching Christmas, you can’t believe election day is finally here. It’s been so long since we’ve had people — Asian and black, white and Spanish-speaking — come together and say YES. Some did during the civil rights struggle but not as many as today. What it means if Mr Obama is voted in, is that my country has agreed to grow up, and move beyond the childish idea that human beings are different.

Where I’ve long thought folks like Robert Farley have been sore winners when it came to Clinton supporters, Kevin Drum gives props to Hillary Clinton for her support and loyalty for the Democratic party even after her disappointing loss in the primaries. Most of the folks I know in meatspace who voted for McCain were former Clinton supporters who were hesitant to vote for Obama after the DNC debacle that ended Clinton’s also-historical run for president (Ilyka writes a brilliant, funny warning piece on PUMAs and the Republican welcome wagon here), which always flabbergasted me because Clinton’s and Obama’s actual voting records were so similar. In any case, Clinton pulled for Obama knowing how important it is that the Democrats win the White House, and I personally think a part of Obama’s win can be credited to her as well.

Another epic win: We now have a record number of women representing in Congress.

Jezebel has a roundup of various world and national news sources’ elated reactions to president-elect Obama.

Tim Wise writes “Good, And Now Back to Work: Avoiding Both Cynicism and Overconfidence in the Age of Obama” at Racialicious, encouraging us to remember that Barack Obama’s acheievement is, “a defeat for the right-wing echo chamber and its rhetorical stormtroopers, foremost among them Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. It was a defeat for the crazed mobs ever-present at McCain/Palin rallies, what with their venomous libels against Obama, their hate-addled brains spewing forth one after another racist and religiously chauvinistic calumny upon his head and those of his supporters,” and so much more. Please check out this powerful, poignant essay.

Nezua’s excitement is contagious in this beautiful piece reminding us how important it is that a national leader represent the populace on so many levels. Like Liza (via twitter), I’m not only thrilled that Obama received a national mandate by sweeping the map by a veritable landslide, but I’m also thrilled that people like my son, whose family spans several cultures, ethnicities, and continents, now has a president that represents those of us who live such multi-cultural lives (which is to say most of us). In so many ways Obama reminds of the optimistic and painful past as much as he signals the future, and this in itself is so exciting.

John Cole points to this roundup of conservative reactions at Sully’s, specifically this reaction from The Corner:

There are about 1,460 days until the next Presidential election, and I assume that I will spend approximately the next 1,459 of them opposing Barack Obama. But I’m spending today proud abut what my country has overcome.

To which Cole replies, “Christ- this is the same Corner that spent the last 6 months trying to convince America that Obama is a terrorist who wants to kill your baby and dance on its corpse while playing George Clinton and sharing a .40 with Al Sharpton. Oh yeah. He wants to give the Jews to Iran, too. I mean, sure, a lot of us are proud of Obama today, but the thing to remember is that in order to get this done, WE HAD TO DEFEAT DOUCHEBAGS LIKE YOU.” Heh. Indeed.

I promised myself I wouldn’t gloat, but, well.

Selfishly, if you were present for the liveblog last night here at Feministe, you’d know that I was holding out for the pundits to call my home state Indiana for Obama. Finally, after some “glitches” kept southeastern Wayne County from calling their results, Indiana, home state of a still-active white supremacist movement, officially went blue for the first time since the 1960s. No, we didn’t oust Bush-lover Governor Mitch Daniels from office, but Indiana did me right yesterday. Fellow Hoosier Melissa shares my elation and appreciation for Obama for putting states like mine in play, saying, “I wanted my state to matter. I wanted the people in it to matter. I wanted my vote to matter. I wanted a candidate to come here and exploit all its purply promise. Indiana is blue for the first time in my entire life.” Hoosier liberals can all squee! together now.

Finally, because I’m a former English major and believe in the True Power of Poetry, I must point to JJP’s poetic plea from Tuesday morning via Langston Hughes, a poem that had me blubbing at my work desk yesterday morning, “Let America Be America Again.”

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Our work isn’t over, not by a long shot, but today I feel hopeful that some real change, I hope, I hope, I hope, might be made. It feels safer to dream again.